July 3, 2019

No more brittle ice in the science trench

Left: Celebration of the last piece of EGRIP brittle ice moving through the science trench. Right: Falk observing a bend GPS stake in the RADIX grid some 30km away from EGRIP camp – who did this?

Today was a big day in the science trench, as the CFA crew completed the measurements of the EGRIP brittle ice section. While the EGRIP brittle ice has been of much better quality than brittle ice from previous Greenland ice core projects, it has still been a challenge to handle for everybody in he science trench due to its fragility. Hence a celebration was certainly called for, as the last piece of brittle ice to be handled int the EGRIP science trench slowly melted away on the CFA melthead – turning itself into beautiful isotopic measurements inside the CFA-cabin.
Later in the day Aslak and Falk returned from their GPS-measurements with a puzzled expression on their faces – one of the aluminium stakes in the GPS network some 30km from camp had been bent! A true mystery: Maybe an unlucky skidoo driver in the middle of the Greenland ice sheet? Or the weather? Anyhow, if somebody out there has an explanation, we will surely be all ears, as the pole was completely vertical below the snow surface, so some force has been used!
Otherwise work continued in both trenches. Very good progress is being made in the drill trench even though the tendency to ever increasing strength of the ice is taxing our drill system, as the core is getting increasingly hard to break. Nevertheless, more than 22m of high quality ice was produced today. Also, on the surface all programs are continued at pace, with both surface and atmospheric measurements running to schedule.

What we did during the day:

1. Drilling 7 runs despite winch spooling issues, intensified filtering and hard core breaks.
2. Logging 7 runs, logged length 22.85m, logged depth 2073.64m.
3. Ice core processing of 51 bags, last bag 3448.
4. CFA measurements of 36 bags, 1917-1930 and 3200-3221, brittle ice completed.
5. PP measurements ongoing in science trench, last bag 3446.
6. Measuring second half of GPS stakes around old RADIX site.
7. Station for atmospheric moisture sampling and isotopic measurement is active.
8. Snow removal in camp.
9. Skiway flag inspection/repair.

EGRIP population is 33.

Weather: Wind between 2kts and 8kts from westerly directions. Mostly cloudy with a few sunny spells. Temperatures from -12°C to -5°C.

FL, Bo Vinther